Page 75: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2013)

www.marinelink.com 75trans-shipment facility, since July 2012 to take advantage of our strategic geo-graphic location between South America and their distant bulk commodity mar- kets. The direct result is that Oldendorff Carriers Trinidad and Tobago Limited, an afÞ liate of Oldendorff Carriers GmbH & Co. KG has already become one of Petrotrin?s largest customers due to their six million tons per annum of iron ore operations being located nearby. Oldendorff Carriers trans-shipment operations, located some six nautical miles off the westerly coast of Trinidad, in the Gulf of Paria, has also provided high paying continuous employment for some 100 nationals of Trinidad and To- bago and presently entails the movement of iron ore which is loaded onto Handy-max vessels in the port of Santana in the Amazon River, Brazil, where the maxi- mum draft of 11.50 meters on the river, limits the carrying capacity to approxi-mately 45,000 tons of ore, per vessel. Upon completion of all trans-shipment cargo operations, fully laden Capesize vessels (180,000-200,000 metric tons) sail after only 6-8 days from their Gulf of Paria Free Zone area to arrive at their Þ nal destinations in of ß oading terminals located in the People?s Republic of Chi- na or the Arabian Gulf. As was recently done by the Minis-try of Trade, Industry and Investments, GoRTT for the Foreign Used Car indus- try, restrictions should also be removed for entry and expansion of industry players in the domestic maritime sector. Restrictive policies can negatively im-pact growth and expansion of the global maritime industry and can be seen in our local ship bunkering industry. For ex- ample, a case can be seen with Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc. (NYSE: ANW) which is an international marine fuel logistics company that markets and physically supplies reÞ ned marine fuel and lubricants to ships in port and at sea. Currently, Aegean has a global presence in 20 markets, including Trinidad and Tobago, Vancouver, Montreal, Mexico, Jamaica, West Africa, Gibraltar, the United Kingdom, Northern Europe, Pi-raeus, Patras, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Morocco, the Antwerp-Rot- terdam-Amsterdam (ARA) region, Las Palmas, Tenerife, Cape Verde, Panama and Hong Kong. Since the establishment of Aegean Bunkering Trinidad operations, offshore the North and East coasts since 2009, it has been actively seeking with very lim-ited success to expand its permitted cov-erage area to also include the calm wa-ters of the Gulf of Paria, which offers the beneÞ ts of one of the largest sheltered harbors in the world and is a drawing card for some of the 31,000 ship voy-ages per year, passing within 25 nautical miles. Some of these ocean going ships, collect their varied bulk commodity shipments of Cement, Methanol, Lique-Þ ed natural gas (LNG) , Urea and Steel rods from the several industrial ports scattered along the western coastline. Compared to the Republic of Singa-pore, an island economy seven times geographically smaller in size than Trin- idad and Tobago, the situation is differ- ent. In Singapore there are a total of 68 accredited bunker suppliers, 67 of which can supply all grades of marine fuel and 1 which is licensed to supply Marine Gas Oil (MGO) only. With their huge global ship owner ac- count base, Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc., is eagerly looking to ex-pand their Trinidad and Tobago bunker- ing operations, pending a review and grant of an expansion to their existing Bunkering License, by the Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs, GoRTT. This current situation can be compared with our Trinidad and Tobago National Petroleum Marketing Company Limited (NP) having a near monopoly for several decades for the exclusive supply of land based retail petroleum fuels and lubri-cants for the automotive sector. With the establishment of the United Independent Petroleum Marketing Company Limited (UNIPET) and the subsequent explosive expansion of their operations, including the supply of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) fuels, I have yet to hear of one complaint?The above update clearly demonstrates the determination of both the govern-ment and private sectors, in shaping our future economy away from the tradition-al oil and gas sectors. There is still room for growth in the maritime industry. SOHRE TURBOMACHINERY® INC. 0RQVRQ0DVV86$?7HO ,1)2#62+5(785%2&20?:::62+5(785%2&20 $UH6WUD\(OHFWULFDO&XUUHQWV'HVWUR\LQJ<RXU0DFKLQHU\" Sohre SHAFT GROUNDING (EARTHING) BRUSHES are used on propeller shafts, turbines, generators, electric motors, gears, pumps, etc. Failure to properly ground (earth) rotating shafts can result in expensive damage to seals, bearings, or other critical components.
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?/LWWOHRUQRPDLQWHQDQFH © 2013 Sohre Turbomachinery, Inc. About the AuthorWilfred de Gannes ? Chairman & CEO, Shipbuilding & Re-pair Development Company of Trini- dad and Tobago Limited (SRDC) which is the commercial business entity of the T&T Shipbuilding & Repair Mari-time Cluster. He is also the Editor of the Trinidad and Tobago Shipbuilder & Repair News (http://issuu.com/ship-buildingandrepair). MR #11 (74-81).indd 75MR #11 (74-81).indd 7511/12/2013 4:11:49 PM11/12/2013 4:11:49 PM